Hey guys, I'm kinda new here so I have a few questions. I just got an old Macbook from a friend and I'd like to know if I could install Ubuntu or anything on it. I've never tried anything like it but I feel like I could if the computer could support it. It's a MacBook (13-inch Early 2008) with a 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Any help would be great!

EDIT: I have installed Linux Mint 13 and I absolutely love it! No problems at all! Thanks for all your help!

Oh god. I've done installs of linux on WAY lower than this. Currently have a 400mhz Pentium II with 256mb of ram serving up files on my home network. Many people have done way better than me. It's an intel, so it's x86...there's practically nothing you couldn't put on it....

If you're new to linux, I don't have any suggestions. I run gentoo and arch. I'm not exactly sure what the "hip" distro is this week as far as desktop distributions. I think a lot of people went to Mint XFCE?...I don't know.

I did LFS once, (Linux from scratch) but at the time I had no freakin' clue what I was typing in...I was just basically doing a paint-by-numbers bit, and it happened to work (mostly). But the machine you have is more than capable of running basically any distro you so choose.

Yes. Anything with the exception of distros that were meant to run on ARM/PPC/SPARC, etc. You've basically just got a PC...nothing special about it. This is what kind of pisses me off about a lot of Mac users saying I've got a "PC"....fuck...so do they. It's all x86/x64 now.

Debian - Stable but slow release cycle unless you use unstable repositories, which tends to defeat the point of debian.

Ubuntu - Based on debian, less stable, but hugely popular and well maintained. If you can use windows/osx, you can use Ubuntu. The downside is that it's harder to customize because it comes with a certain amount of default software and configuration, also lots of recent design changes have annoyed longtime users. See also Kubuntu and Xubuntu.

Linux Mint - Based on Ubuntu, like Ubuntu but with a less shitty default GUI. Extremely popular recently due to the Unity kerfuffle.

Fedora - It's been around for a while, it's a perfectly good distribution. Different package system than the debians, not much else to say.

Arch - No installer, you have to read a lot, the base install leaves you with a minimal system, (read: command line until you choose to install a GUI) but it's extremely powerful and flexible. Uses it's own package system, generally recommended for intermediate users who don't fear the terminal. Did I mention you have to read a lot?

Slackware - Classic and cherished distribution, gives you a functional system, grants you access to the slackware table at linux conventions. Enjoy the tar.gz's.

Good luck, you'll probably like it. Remember that you can try different Window Managers and Desktop Environments without changing your distribution. If you don't like Cinnamon or Mate, you can try gnome or kde or openbox or icewm or xfce etc etc etc. All available from the repositories, and you can even have multiple types installed simultaneously and switch between them by logging out and back in.

Linux is all about flexibility, modularity, customizability, and being open to alternatives. You will get out of it what you choose to learn about it.

Also, while it's not the distribution you're using, Arch has an excellent list of applications -

Just search the page to find whatever apps you need, then install them via your package manager or software center on Mint. Since many linux apps have ridiculous names and most sites listing "top linux applications" are a pile of shit flogging eyecandy over functionality, it's a good way to skip through the bull when you need an app to do something but you don't know the *nix analogue.

You will definitely encounter issues and problems along the way that you'll need to do some googling to resolve.

I'm happy to help, but I've got to pass out in the immediate future due to an imminent workday. I'll be back online tomorrow around 6 PM EST, so feel free to message me/comment in this thread and I'll get back to you then.

I have an early 2008 MBP that I run Ubuntu on in a virtual machine. This is very doable if you have enough RAM and allows running both Ubuntu and Mac OS at the same time. You probably don't have enough RAM to do this effectively.

All intel MACs can have Linux installed natively. However it isn't exactly straight forward with older distributions due to the fact that no BIOS is present on the machines. So you will either have to install boot camp or use a distro that is able to work with the Mac boot environment. Frankly I'm not up to speed, the version of Ubuntu I'm using is old to support a specific piece of software. Given that I would not recommend Ubuntu, it don't like and frankly never have.

Before buying my Mac I was big into Linux and Fedora. I would likely look to fedora first but would also shop around. Due to the limited RAM you really want a light weight GUI, like XCFE or something similar.

In any event post back if you could. Success stories are always interesting to hear.

Whoops, XFCE is a Window manager not a distribution. Frankly it has been since about 2007 since I've installed anything other than Ubuntu on that VM. Thus I can't make an up to date recommendation. However I'm very very partial to the Fedora/RedHat derived distros. Mainly because I've used them since RedHat 4 or so.

That being said I'm simply not sure who has the best solution (distro) for install on Mac hardware. I would imagine if Boot Camp is installed any distro can be stuffed in the Mac. I would search first for something that doesn't need Boot Camp if it exists.